CODRESCU TAKES A `ROAD' TRIP OUT OF THE MAINSTREAM

At the top of "Road Scholar," Andrei Codrescu, the poet and National Public Radio humorist, remarks that he once had two claims to fame: "I was born in Transylvania and I didn't drive a car."

Only one claim holds up with the release of "Road Scholar," a lively, amusing documentary about the droll observations of Codrescu (who wrote the screenplay) as he takes driving lessons and then sets out on "the all-American ritual: the cross-country road trip."

Directed by Roger Weisberg and Jean De Segonzac (who doubles as cinematographer), the film puts its unlikely centerpiece into a '68 red Caddy convertible and records his encounters with others outside the American mainstream.

(A Romanian Jewish dissident, he came to the United States in 1966.) These include an ascetic Christian pacifist sect in upstate New York; Eastern European immigrants working in a sausage factory in Hamtramck, Mich.; and a gospel prayer group, known as the Holy Rollers, that meets in a Chicago roller rink.

He also goes to a "cow beauty" contest in Denver, where breeders talk about "femininity in livestock"; takes machine-gun shooting lessons from a comely instructor in Nevada; talks to a young Taos Pueblo Indian in New Mexico who says, "We don't do these dances for any Mickey Mouse Club kind of thing"; and undertakes a crystal healing session from a Santa Fe woman as he notes, "Crystals must be to the New Age what velvet painting is to art."

Throughout, he draws parallels to Romania, and includes gentle put-downs of his adopted land, mostly regarding its bad taste (especially along kitsch-clogged Route 66). Nonetheless, there is an underlying love and appreciation of the United States. "Paradoxically," Codrescu says at one point, "the most material country in the world is also the most spiritual."

- "Schtonk!" is not the sound made by a movie projector slamming to a halt, but a wonderful, peppy German satire/farce that zeros in on greed, gullibility and collective guilt as it sends up everything from pompous art criticism to the mania for Third Reich relics.

Directed and co-written by Helmut Dietl and loosely based on the Hitler diaries scandal, it centers on a con man (Uwe Ochsenknecht) who, as a postwar 9-year-old, peddled phony Hitler memorabilia to American Army suckers. Growing up, he takes an ersatz title of professor of history and antiquities, then creates a portrait allegedly painted by Hitler of a nude Eva Braun (actually, it's a buxom barmaid). His biggest scam items, though, are cleverly forged diaries reportedly written by the Fuehrer, which he sells to a Hamburg newspaper at the instigation of a zealous reporter (Gotz George, a cross between Terry-Thomas and John Cleese) who is desperate to get a world-class scoop.

Reminiscent of Peter Sellers vehicles of the '50s and '60s, this movie, opening Friday at Facets, might be the closest we will ever come to a German screwball comedy. The title itself, incidentally, is fake-a gibberish word similar to one Charlie Chaplin used while pretending to speak German in "The Great Dictator."

Presented in German with English subtitles, "Schtonk!" is not rated by the MPAA. It contains strong language and nudity.

Rating: (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)

''ROAD SCHOLAR'' (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)

Directed by Roger Weisberg and Jean De Segonzac; written by Andrei Codrescu; photographed by De Segonzac; edited by Alan Miller. A Samuel Goldwyn release; opens Friday at the Music Box Theatre. Running time: 1:23. Not rated by the MPAA.